Caroline Kennedy rallies the troops at Democratic office in Portsmouth

By Jim Haddadin

jhaddadin@fosters.com

Sunday, November 4, 2012

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John Huff/Staff photographer
Caroline Kennedy signs an Obama campaign sign for volunteer Tom Reid at their Portsmouth headquarters Saturday during a rally for the up and coming election day.

PORTSMOUTH — With the hours before Tuesday's election ticking away, Democratic party favorite Caroline Kennedy paid a visit to a campaign office in Portsmouth Saturday to fire up volunteers.

Kennedy, the last surviving child of President John F. Kennedy, made an appeal to female voters during her brief stop at the Obama for America office on Brewery Lane at 11:30 a.m. The visit came a few hours after a Republican rally at Pease International Tradeport, where GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney addressed supporters.

“You have people just like you all over this country who are determined to make sure Barack Obama is re-elected on Tuesday,” Kennedy told a crowd of several dozen people.

Many of the Obama campaign volunteers had been working the phones in the morning to ensure Democratic-leaning voters were planning to show up at the polls Tuesday. Others volunteered to canvas around the Port City, a hub of support for Democrats in the Granite State.

Kennedy made a splash in early 2008 by writing an op-ed column for The New York Times declaring her support for Obama, saying he had the potential to be as inspirational to Americans as her father was in the 1960s. She was set to discuss issues of importance to female voters at several stops around the state Saturday, beginning in Portsmouth.

Kennedy was met with applause after her first entreaty to women in the room. She told the crowd the Obama campaign is poised to change history in the 2012 election, and asked everyone to keep talking to friends and undecided voters in the lead-up to Nov. 6.

“I know from growing up in politics that women do all the work,” Kennedy said, ending her remarks soon after to sign autographs and shake hands with Obama supporters.

One woman who was putting in work for the Obama camp on Saturday was Portsmouth resident Kathleen Soldati, director of marketing at The Music Hall of Portsmouth. Soldati and her husband, former Somersworth mayor Lincoln Soldati, are both volunteering for the Obama campaign this year.

Kathleen Soldati said she spent about one hour making phone calls on behalf of the campaign Saturday, with instructions to ask voters not only if they plan to vote Tuesday, but also how they plan to get to the polls.

Her husband is volunteering as an election monitor for the campaign this year. He'll observe procedures in Somersworth Ward 1 during Election Day. Soldati said the state's new voter identification law is one of the prime concerns for election monitors this year.

The new law calls for all voters to show a valid form of photo identification in order to cast a ballot. Those who don't have an ID will also be eligible to vote after signing a so-called “challenged voter affidavit” — a statement attesting to their eligibility to vote in New Hampshire.

“A lot of people don't realize that if you show up and you don't have your ID, you're still eligible to vote,” Lincoln Soldati said.

Attorney General Michael Delaney called a press conference Friday to clear up confusion around the new voter ID law, and to underscore the fact that voters will not be turned away at the polls if they don't carry ID.

“We're not there to interfere in any way,” Soldati said of the Obama campaign's squad of election monitors. “We're there to be a resource and help if we can.”